Increase Taxes to Create Jobs

We have a problem to solve. If you aren't aware, American Corporations just had their best year ever this year. That's right, while we are underemployed, the big players have set themselves up for a tidy 1.69 Trillion Dollars in profit. Depending on who you ask, the unemployment rate hit a low of 3.6% at the end of Clinton's presidency, hovered between 4 and 6% under most of Bush, and leaped to 10.6% under Obama at the worst. Now it's at 9.3%, but it's relevant to note that last month it was at 9%. Heading into the holiday retail rush, unemployment still rose. Graph

So how can this be? We have the best year ever for corps yet we have this highest unemployment rates in my lifetime. Wages to employ the middle class male hasn't moved in my 36 years of life (page 36 of this PDF). So how is it that a company can go from employing people, to losing them, to becoming profitable again yet not looking to employ people back at the same level? I'm suggesting that there is a tax incentive not to.

Corporations are ran by people whom make a very good living. Great news for them. They are also legally obligated to make the most money possible for their share holders. If you have a company that is being taxed at a low level, being ran by someone taxed at a low level (16% was the rate at which the highest earners were taxed on average) whom doesn't have to pay the income tax on services used while working (private jet, lavish dinners, Hotels, vacations) why would they rather hire someone? If they spend more on themselves, they can keep more of their own money and pay themselves in stock which gets taxed as Capital Gains at 15%.

Almost three-quarters of the highest earners’ income was in capital gains and dividends taxed at a 15 percent rate set as part of Bush-backed tax cuts in 2003 Link

An example... if you owned a corporation, or a dozen, and you had a 35 million dollar mansion with plenty of space, but you faced a tax burden, what would prevent you from purchasing another 15 million dollar home next door as your office? Thanks for the write off!

So we've reached a point where we have taxed too little. There is no incentive to hire people over spending the money on yourself. We have to go back and raise taxes on corporations in terms of closing loop holes. We have to raise the taxes on the wealthy because the income disparity has spun out of control in the last 30 years. Even in an economy like this, the rich have found a way to get a hold of our money directly in bailouts. Indirectly in write offs for their Bombadier Challengers. And indirectly by choosing to not hire people, but instead spend on themselves. This is a problem with a 30 year history to look at. Even with Bush tax cuts that supply-siders like claim increases revenues, didn't work. It was five years before revenues went up, hardly relate-able to the tax cut.

Raise taxes in a way that doesn't incentivize job growth at a cost to the people, but increase them in a way that it's a lose lose for the corporations if they don't hire. That million dollar remodel of the office, you can write off $15,000 of it and you are paying the rest on income tax. And if you try to skate, we're taking you and the CFO to jail. Spend a million on salaries and you can write the whole thing off. That's how you incentivize business properly.

Tell the rich that since you get all of your income from Capital Gains, that's now a progressive tax just like income. You have to go back 94 years to find tax rates as low as they are today. Our system of making sure that the rich have a pile of cash in hopes that we'll catch a nickel isn't working. Not for the people, the government, or even effective business.

Many of the rich get it. We have 371 Billionaires in the US. 57 of them are on the Giving Pledge. Stop with the claims that we get more jobs by taxing less. Stop with the claims of more revenues on less taxes. It's all bull.

So how would you raise taxes to create more jobs? I know that there are tons of ways. Let's brainstorm some areas that get abused that need to be addressed.

Replies to This Discussion

what is your definition of rich.....the $250,000 per household....?????

where do u think all the money for research of renewable resources comes from......the government or the people who are investing.....

and u tell me how is that taxing the rich little bit more is going to help this country?????

how much tax should they pay if a household makes $250,000 a year....meaning fedreal, state, city, housing etc....break it down for me.....if a nurse goes to anesthesiology to improve her career or becomes a certified nurse practitioner or a pharmacist or a banker etc. who all make close to 100,000 a year, are they all rich, even when they have the more than a house payment in student loans.....when should they start a life....or should they not reap the benefits of their hard labor....

Raising taxes will only create jobs if the revenue is spent in a way that employs people. For example, infrastructure projects or unemployment benefits. Just raising taxes without cutting them elsewhere or increasing spending will only lead to job losses. However, raising some taxes will have more effect than raising others - raising taxes on very high incomes, for example, will have only very modest negative effects, that would easily be offset by not having to raise taxes later on middle-income earners.

u can do the same....find the right career and go work for it......they are a lot of programs that make that much money........but don't penalize somebody for burning the midnight oil, or having an ambition to succeed .....i have given u a lot of arguments but ur reply always is somebody else's article or some graph.....never ur own words.....

the definition right now is $250,000 per household, than u are rich....but nobody takes into account that if u graduate from a professional degree u easily come out with $150,000 in student loans......by the time u graduate it is time to start a family and have kids and stuff and start saving for their college.....

You have given arguments, but no actual information to back up what you say. Why should we just blithely take you at your word if you are unwilling to provide data to back up your claims? Links to articles and studies that support your claims, something more than "I've studied this, so I am right." Creationists claim to have 'studied' too, and there is certainly no reason to accept their claims.

You've said that you don't like data and instead just want to use common sense. Well, common sense is often wrong. That's why we need actual data, from studies that employ scientific reasoning and that are controlled to avoid the inherent bias in our perceptions. Without providing evidence, you're just making an unsupported claim.

You are welcome to take on a single fact that I've put up. Until you do so you are simply background noise. This isn't even the first post where you've disregarded facts and simply ran with rhetoric.

Since you don't like my Googling, maybe you can look up Google and them paying 2.4% overseas rate in taxes due to shifting money in and out of countries. Just because they move money around they shouldn't pay the 12.5% that Ireland asks? These are the holes that we need to close. It's not about preventing them from making money. It's not about being evil. It's about the rich and corporations taking advantage of a system to avoid paying taxes that the rest of the country cannot afford to do. The rest of us can't take a years worth of income and just shift it around the world hiding it. I can't take all of my income, invest it in capital gains to write it off the investment then live on the money years later at a 15% rate even though it should have been taxed at 35% in the first place. Stop turning this into a class war and get to the meat of the matter.